This Thanksgiving, let’s all be like the president and pardon some poor turkey
Dan Brawner
November 19, 2007
Thanksgiving is not only the day of giving thanks for our many blessings, but it is the day the president of our country takes time away from his busy schedule to pardon a couple of turkeys – now don’t get ahead of me here. I’m talking about real, actual, feathered turkeys, the kind Americans traditionally dismember and devour on Thanksgiving Day.
This practice of presidents pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys dates back, they say to 1947 and Harry Truman. There seems to be no ideological or dietary reason given for the pardon. Presidents are typically carnivorous (and are sometimes downright bloodthirsty). The pardon appears to be an act of mercy for its own sake.
Last year, George Bush commuted the sentences of a condemned turkey and his alternate, respectively named “Fryer” and “Flyer”. By the names, you’d think one was predestined for the table and the other for freedom. But the element of surprise is an inherent quality of mercy and both birds were allowed to live out their remaining years in paradise on a model farm in Fairfax County, VA with the ominous name of “Frying Pan Park”.
And speaking of names, the White House is encouraging citizens to vote on the names for this year’s poultry parolees. Go to their Web site and you can choose from cute names like “Wing and Prayer” or “Wish and Bone”. It’s probably just as well we are not allowed to write in names of our own or some wise guy might suggest the turkeys be named for a certain highly-placed former chief of staff and his boss, famous for their high crimes and misdemeanors. These turkeys could be called–oh, I don’t know, maybe “Scooter and Shooter” .
But turkeys aside, the idea of pardoning someone on Thanksgiving Day is one worthy of tradition. Forget about payback. Forget even about justice. Forgiveness is a power possessed by the mighty and the meek alike. No one is so poor or limited by circumstance that he is unable to suddenly forgive someone who may richly deserve to have the living stuffing choked out of him.
We cannot all be president of the United States (thank goodness), but to spontaneously pardon that knucklehead who cuts in front of you on the interstate is to know what it is like to be Caesar, if only for a moment. In your imagination, the fate of the transgressor rests in your omnipotent hands. Shall his head be placed on the chopping block? Hmmm. He doesn’t deserved to live, but–very well. You let him off. No hard feelings. No conditions. No promises to go and sin no more. You simply forgive him. That’s powerful stuff. And who knows? Maybe someday that knucklehead on the interstate could be you. And wouldn’t it be nice to receive a little mercy?
As we count our blessings this Thanksgiving Day, we might consider that we are all either “Fryer” or “Flyer” and it could go either way, depending on a single act of kindness. I don’t know what the Bush family will be having for dinner this Thanksgiving. But I suspect, after Thursday, there is going to be one less turkey in Washington.
This practice of presidents pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys dates back, they say to 1947 and Harry Truman. There seems to be no ideological or dietary reason given for the pardon. Presidents are typically carnivorous (and are sometimes downright bloodthirsty). The pardon appears to be an act of mercy for its own sake.
Last year, George Bush commuted the sentences of a condemned turkey and his alternate, respectively named “Fryer” and “Flyer”. By the names, you’d think one was predestined for the table and the other for freedom. But the element of surprise is an inherent quality of mercy and both birds were allowed to live out their remaining years in paradise on a model farm in Fairfax County, VA with the ominous name of “Frying Pan Park”.
And speaking of names, the White House is encouraging citizens to vote on the names for this year’s poultry parolees. Go to their Web site and you can choose from cute names like “Wing and Prayer” or “Wish and Bone”. It’s probably just as well we are not allowed to write in names of our own or some wise guy might suggest the turkeys be named for a certain highly-placed former chief of staff and his boss, famous for their high crimes and misdemeanors. These turkeys could be called–oh, I don’t know, maybe “Scooter and Shooter” .
But turkeys aside, the idea of pardoning someone on Thanksgiving Day is one worthy of tradition. Forget about payback. Forget even about justice. Forgiveness is a power possessed by the mighty and the meek alike. No one is so poor or limited by circumstance that he is unable to suddenly forgive someone who may richly deserve to have the living stuffing choked out of him.
We cannot all be president of the United States (thank goodness), but to spontaneously pardon that knucklehead who cuts in front of you on the interstate is to know what it is like to be Caesar, if only for a moment. In your imagination, the fate of the transgressor rests in your omnipotent hands. Shall his head be placed on the chopping block? Hmmm. He doesn’t deserved to live, but–very well. You let him off. No hard feelings. No conditions. No promises to go and sin no more. You simply forgive him. That’s powerful stuff. And who knows? Maybe someday that knucklehead on the interstate could be you. And wouldn’t it be nice to receive a little mercy?
As we count our blessings this Thanksgiving Day, we might consider that we are all either “Fryer” or “Flyer” and it could go either way, depending on a single act of kindness. I don’t know what the Bush family will be having for dinner this Thanksgiving. But I suspect, after Thursday, there is going to be one less turkey in Washington.
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